Humanitarian Logistics Training Needs: A Systematic Review in Relation to Sri Lankan Humanitarian Sector

Abstract In the light of increasing attention and the precedence of humanitarian operations, logistics have taken an unprecedented turn in the humanitarian sector. Humanitarian Logistics (HL) has now become one of the significant factors in assisting any disaster. Statistics indicates that, increasing disasters have become a major concern for the international community. A large part of the success of humanitarian operations is directly attributable to the effectiveness and efficiency of logistics. Training of logisticians is necessary for effective management of supply chain in a disaster. The recent issues that are being faced in regard to humanitarian logistics at each disaster in Sri Lanka emphasize the need for research into the area of humanitarian logistics. A number of researches have been carried out to find training needs of humanitarian logisticians1 (‘humlogs’) in order to accomplish efficiency and effectiveness of humanitarian supply chains at global level. However, to date there has been limited discussion on the training of ‘humlogs’ in Sri Lanka. A systematic literature survey was conducted in order to find the gaps indicated by scholars in the humanitarian logistics training at global level. Articles were selected from two major publication sites. They were further reviewed and analyzed to find gaps that are applicable to humanitarian logistics training. These gaps were further applied to the SL humanitarian sector. This paper offers a literature survey and an insight of ‘humlolg’ training in the Sri Lankan humanitarian landscape. Results show the gaps that exist in training of ‘humlogs’ and the significance of such training for future disasters in Sri Lanka. Additionally, this paper also indicates future research requirements to the field of humanitarian logistics. Keywords: Education, Humanitarian logistics, Skills, Sri Lanka, Training